Adrian Cox: ‘The Brush and the Torch’

Even forgotten myths act as fertilizer for new stories to grow. LA artist Adrian Cox returns to Corey Helford Gallery this month with a new batch of beguiling paintings that build upon the rich mythology embedded in his <a href="https://notrealart.com/painter-adrian-cox-explores-how-modern-myth-making-reshapes-reality/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">previous work</a>. Featuring 25 new paintings, The Brush and the Torch marks Adrian’s fourth exhibition at Corey Helford and broadens the fantastic story at the heart of his work. “My paintings chronicle the lives of the Border Creatures, a group of hybrid beings that live in the verdant wilderness of the Borderlands,” Cox explains. “The Border Creatures exist in symbiotic harmony with the natural world, but are antagonized by the Specters, spirits of pure energy that casually burn the landscape that they walk upon […] the war between the Border Creatures and Specters is a conflict between two distinct ways of being in the world.” <img alt="Adrian Cox returns to LA’s Corey Helford Gallery this month with a new batch of paintings that reflect on modern mythmaking, creativity, and spirituality." src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/0*h2cuwtlKVp2ZRIrU.jpg" style="height:700px; width:700px" /> ‘The Lost Spectral Witnesses XIX (Initiation)’ To live in the borderlands, as poet Gloria Anzaldua <a href="https://powerpoetry.org/content/live-borderlands" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">would say</a>, implies you’re “caught in the crossfire between camps.” Though his work is pure fantasy, Cox deftly draws parallels between the persecuted Border Creatures and those caught in the crossfire of modern myth-making. Adrian, who grew up in the Deep South with closeted queer parents, is especially sensitive toward harmful myths surrounding the LGBTQ+ community Learn More